Assault Weapons Ban Is a 'Hoax' Says Popular Playwright

Theater scribe David Mamet unloads on firearms restrictions

Not to be outdone by the likes of Stephen King, playwright David Mamet - of Glengarry Glen Ross fame - is weighing in on the gun issue as well, and telling the government to back off citizens' Second Amendment rights.

Writing at Newsweek, Mamet, who's turn to the right in recent years has baffled many, equates rule by "bureaucrats and functionaries" with Marxism. He hails the country's founding fathers, whom he contrasts with the President and his supposed lack of skepticism when it comes to government power.

"President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions,'" writes Mamet. "The Constitution's drafters did not require a wag to teach them that power corrupts: they had experienced it in the person of King George."

He goes on to call an assault weapons ban a kind of grandiose and bad joke.

"The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax," he states. "It is a political appeal to the ignorant."

David Mamet seems like his has a good understanding of the issue. The problem with banning anything that looks scary is that the more you ban the more you'll have to ban. Eventually we'll get to a point where we'll either have to face the scary thing or we'll be locked in a padded room. I feel the nation is safest when law abiding citizens are left alone.

Very good stuff. I liked most of it and this part was also pretty good."there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms.

The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals."

@woodtick57 Handguns are 43 times more likely to kill a member of your own family than an intruder.

The study by Arthur Kellermann from which that statistic is pulled doesn't say that. The number includes suicides. The study doesn't take into account defensive uses in which a shot was not fired (99% of the uses), and it doesn't reflect intruders avoiding homes with firearms inside.

Your gun is more likely to kill you or someone you love than an intruder.

Less than one percent of defensive gun uses results in a kill (see Gary Kleck's book "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America). According to the National Institute of Justice's report "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms", guns are used over 1.5 million times a year in self defense. With tens of thousands of gun deaths a year, that means that firearms are used 40 times more often for protection than for murder.

@cleverusername The honest measure of the benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved by deaths and injuries averted, and the property protected. 65 lives protected by guns for every life lost to a gun.http://rense.com/general32 /nine.htm

His words to describe his thoughts are a bit strange, but he has valid points. The Liberals seem fixated on inanimate objects as things they can "control". It is as if the gun can decide what it is going to be used for, and by punishing and jailing the gun we will somehow feel safer. Very little has been said by any Liberal (including the chief nutjob Obama) about actually controlling people, or providing protection to people to prevent harm by other people. The assault weapons ban will do nothing but make a few Liberals feel good (maybe Chris Matthews can wet his pants again). If later the Liberals find that they have not accomplished anything, their only response will be "what else can we ban"?

Guns didnt kill those kids. A mentally ill person did. I dont have guns, and never will have guns, thats my choice..Need to seriously revamp mental health care.. His mother was an idiot. She knew and chose to ignore it and chose to add to it. She should have been charged for contributing..Its alot easy to yank peoples rights than to form a true coalition to stop these school shootings by way of mental help. Because in large part its a huge stigma..

or a politician using live kids to further an agenda instead of scoring points. I don't believe anyone has forgotten about the kids. Sadly, they are no safer today than before the Presidents feel good executive orders.

BTW The County Sheriffs of Colorado has come our publicly and stated they won't support any of the proposed gun restrictions.

That would be because in their liberally limited mind, it is ok to kill living fetus but not ok to have a GUN to protect your adult life by taking another when justified. This is liberal logic at its shining.

Once again we need different poll choices. I would like "No, Mamet is a Nutbag." Although sometimes brilliant, his work is often odd, and often boring. His characters tend to be just a little "off" in almost undefinable ways, almost as if Mamet is living in a slightly different reality than the rest of us. I've never understood his popularity.

Nothing unusual about this. The SAME EXACT turnabout was done by Charlton Heston, who was very much on the left and even used to march in civil rights rallies. He never lost his support for civil rights. It just broadened to include the 2nd Amendment.fauxassaultweapons dot blogspot dot com 2ndamendmentrevision dot blogspot dot com